


monsoon

by poalimal



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Space, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Grief, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Sexual Harassment, WIP?, Xenophobia, alternating pov, implied sexual slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2020-05-13 06:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19245790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poalimal/pseuds/poalimal
Summary: The heat wave broke, unexpectedly, in the afternoon.





	1. Chapter 1

 

The heat wave broke, unexpectedly, in the afternoon, with hours and hours of rain. The streets were mostly empty when Sam ran home from the skyway station - no one was even really around to see him get mud and sand all over his barely broken-in boots. It was only after he'd already peeled his uniform off that he realised: Starla wasn't there, and his kitchen floor was soaked.

'Damn it,' he muttered to himself, slamming the kitchen window shut. He threw on a pair of ratty sweatpants and Steve's old raincoat and grabbed Starla's favourite bell, privately resolving to never again ask his landlord to feed his cat until she actually kicked her tuka habit.

Outside it was still pouring, cooler now that the sun was sinking. Soon it would be Full Dark for four hours, until moonrise. And Sam's little comm light didn't stand a chance in that.

'Starla!' he hollered, shaking the bell hopelessly as he ran up and down the street. 'C'mon, girl,' he whispered to himself, trying not to panic.

The bell he slipped into his pocket, his hands he cupped around his mouth. 'Starla!'

He strained his ears - it was hard to really hear anything over the rain battering the tin-drum roofs around him - he just had to hope Starla's good ear was working overtime to-sol.

' _Msss_. _Msss-mss_.' Sam whipped his head around just in time to see Starla disappear into the nearest alley.

'Starla!' he said, eyes going heavy and hot with relief as he ran after her, into the dark of the alleyway. 'You scared me, Li'l Miss! Hey, where'd you go?' He stopped short in the dim light and took a second to collect himself. It had been a long day at the hospital, and all he wanted to do was curl up with his cat and watch shitty dramas until the lights went out. Was that so much to ask?

' _Msss_.'

Sam raised his comm light up instinctively, ran it over the walls first and then the bins, clattered to the side and upended, as if someone had dumped them out. Or, he thought, creeping closer, as if someone had fallen on top of them.

' _Msss-mss_.' Sam turned towards the sound of Starla's voice - and there she was, padding up the chest of a person he'd never seen before, crumpled over against the wall, covered in blood and garbage, and barely breathing.

 

* * *

 

Between one sharp breath and the next - the Buck awoke.

'Well, hello, there,' said a voice. Warm, with a little hint of that drawl so common in the Southern quarters.

The Buck snapped his eyes open, wincing instinctively at the light. He waited for his vision to settle before looking around. He was in a room. Someone's personal living quarters, it looked like, belonging most likely to the Terran-seeder standing over him. It was raining pretty heavy outside.

What had happened to him? When he tried to recall the past few hours, a deep, flancing pain ripped through his head. So he'd been wiped already tonight - but to what purpose? And how had this Terran-seeder found him? Was xe his next mission?

The Buck looked xir over, taking careful note of the pierced-over bonding mark on xir shoulder, and couldn't help but be confused. Even moreso when he licked the air: xe was a dry Beta, it smelled like. No, there had to be some mistake - no way the Hive would make him do the useless work of getting some no-name Terran-seeder pregnant.

'Hey, no need to look like that,' the Terran-seeder said, sounding amused. 'You're in West Soqua, in my dump of a flat,' xe glanced at xir watch, 'it's two-hours Full Dark, and,' xe smiled, wide and pretty, 'my name is Sam.'

The Buck's mouth filled with water at the sight of Sam's sweet gap-toothed smile - his belly tightened, his teeth pushed out into his bottom lip, and his cock grew full and heavy. Mm.

Well, maybe he wouldn't mind - just this once.

'Come here, Sam,' he rasped, 'and let me fuck you.'

 

* * *

 

Sam blinked. The stranger - who up until 45 minutes ago had been bleeding out, and entirely off his head on something that took two Nebidazines to neutralise - was clearly serious, licking his lips and baring his teeth... the whole Alphan nine yards.

Sam laughed in spite of himself. 'I don't think either of us is up to any fucking tonight,' he deflected lightly. He was mindful of Starla one room over, dozing on the couch, and he tried to keep his voice down. 'You're in pretty bad shape, man.'

'What, you mean this?' said the stranger, gesturing down to himself, the cuts and bruises, and the bloodied bandages nearby. 'Whatever, I've been through worse, I'll be fine in the morning.' Sam would've rolled his eyes at his baseless confidence - but the stranger did seem a lot more animated than he'd been, even a few minutes ago. His cheeks were all flushed, his eyes were glittering--

'Do you have a fever?' Sam asked, concerned. He pressed the back of his hand to the stranger's forehead. Hm, no, his temp felt fine - in fact he even felt a little cool, compared to Sam. Still, he knew from experience that Alphas could get a little mixed-up and grabby when they were wounded. Especially when a Beta-smelling Omega was their nurse.

'C'mon, Sam,' said the stranger, licking his teeth, 'lemme eat you out, I promise I'll make it good for you, I'll make you see--'

'What, stars?' Sam scoffed, no longer even slightly amused. 'I don't get off on mindless rut talk, so don't try it again. How about we start with your name first?' He reached for a well-worn joke, trying to ease the tension a bit: 'Hey, for all I know, you could be the long-lost Prince, and I could be committing a capital crime just by talking to you.'

The stranger scowled. 'I ain't no dumb Prince,' he said, scooching up on the bed. And with not even a wince, Sam noticed. 'I'm just me. Just the... Just Buck.'

'Buck?' Sam repeated. What was that, Sokov-I'ian or something? 'What the heck kinda name is Buck?'

'It's mine, Terran-seeder,' Buck said flatly. Sam blinked at him incredulously, not even offended. Unless he was missing something, Buck was Terran-descended, too! Internalised xenophobia really was real. 'And if you don't want to fuck, then leave me alone.' And he turned on his side, as if that was that.

'I'll let that one go, cus you're wounded, and I don't hurt people who can't defend themselves,' Sam said quietly, 'but if you say that word again, I'm throwing you out. And you can try all your shit out in Full Dark.'

Buck didn't turn back over. Before Sam left the room, he heard a sullen little, 'Sorry.'

'Dude's got quite the mouth on him,' Sam said later that night, rinsing his toothbrush. 'I think you'd like him. Well,' he laughed to himself, coming into the bedroom, 'after you punched him in the face for being rude, I think you'd like him. He's got that, what'd you call it,' he snapped his fingers, 'that spitfire!

'Yea,' he said, soft, reaching out for the framed photograph of Steve; running his thumb down slow over the glass. 'I think you'd like him.'

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This may never be finished. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Who knows if Steve would've liked Buck? Steve was dead.

Dead in all the ways that mattered, anyway - dead on paper, for one thing... and dead to Sam, for another. There'd been a death certificate, hadn't there? And in all 413 officially recognised languages, too. (The font had been very small.) Maybe it shouldn't have been such a surprise. After all, it wasn't at all unusual for 'crashers to run out of their own oxygen up in the Rocky Bay, trying to gather oxygen for everyone who needed it down on the surface. The job was definitively dangerous, that was half why it paid so well.

 _Sam_ had been surprised. Sam had been inconsolable.

'But I just talked to him yesterday,' he said, when he got the news, waiting for his words to stick somewhere, anywhere. 'I thought - he was supposed to come home.' The police officer who gave him the news, Captain P'nekos, gruffly there-there-there-son'd him until he managed to stop hyperventilating and finally threw himself out of the door and into the crush of the police station.

'I want to see him,' he demanded. 'I want to see his body.'

None of the other officers or arrestees knew what he was talking about, or frankly, much cared. It was a very busy police station. As the largest sector in the whole Basin, West Soqua saw more crime than any of the other sectors by a very wide margin. It was often said that there were more crimes committed in one sol on good old West Soqua than you could cry tears.

Whoever started that saying would've gently rephrased if they'd followed Sam home that sol and seen how many tears he cried. For the moment, though, there in the West Soqua police station, all Sam had was a little ball of anger.

'I want to see his body!' he said, louder still. Captain P'nekos briskly pulled him to the side, sending quelling glances to xir annoyed colleagues.

'I'm sorry to tell you this, son,' Captain P'nekos said, 'but there is no body. We picked up the distress signal right before his ship got swept out into the inner Bay.'

There was a lump, somewhere in Sam's throat. 'But--' he said. His voice went away; he couldn't swallow right. 'But I just _talked_ to him. I can still--'

he cut himself off before he could say something idiotic like _I_ _can still feel him_. Sam had grown up surrounded by self-correcting scientists, he'd gotten medic training back in the military, same as any soldier worth their water, he'd done the standard six and a half years of medical training after he'd been discharged. He knew the truth: bonding marks weren't psychic, or mystical, or even all that interesting. In the event of a traumatic, one-sided removal, bonding marks reacted like ghost limbs, good only for spanning the distance between a person and... and their nothing.

Sam had never imagined that he would be one half of a nothing.

Even though Sam was just a Beta (as far as Captain P'nekos could see), something about such a broken expression on such a sweet face softened xem right up. 'Listen,' xe said, putting a hand on Sam's shoulder, 'why don't you call some family? You can use my comm. You shouldn't be alone tonight.'

'Yes, yes,' said Sam, ducking out from under xir grasp, now desperate to escape. 'Thank you, Captain, I'll-- goodbye.'

The truth was that Sam's mother and father had been dead now for several years. His older brother Gid had married up and moved South, and did not like being reminded of his principal youthful indiscretions, namely, growing up poor and in the Terran way. And Sam's sister Sair was all the way down in Tharsis, measuring seismic activity: she wouldn't be reachable for months.

No, Sam had not had much in the way of people he could rely on - but he had had Steve. And now he was gone, too.

 

* * *

 

So, the truth: Steve was dead, in all the ways that mattered... except for perhaps the most obvious one.

'How long are you going to keep me here?' said Steve. (This was three months ago - two days after Sam had been informed of Steve's death.) 'I told you, I don't believe in the Southern Monarchy, I don't care about the Prince, I just want to go home.'

Bonor and Nat didn't even bother looking up from their cards. 'Got any... Aces?' Bonor asked.  
  
'Ha!' said Nat. 'Go Dig!' Bonor sighed, and pulled up another card.

A fresh wave of sadness pulsed through the mark stretched acros Steve's rib. Sam _needed_ him, he was probably going out of his mind with worry. Steve gritted his teeth, trying to swallow his anger. Uselessly, he flexed his arms against the bindings holding him trapped in his chair; and he glowered hard at the two mercenaries from across the room.

'You can't hold me here forever,' he said, low. 'You know that I'll get free. And then neither of you will be able to stop me.'

Nat finally looked up from xir cards, xir eyes flicking sideways with amusement. 'And you say you aren't an Alpha,' xe cooed.

Steve swore he saw red. 'What does my being a Beta have to do with anything? This is sick, you're both sick! And I don't know where your Prince is, so just - let - me - go!'

Bonor flipped backwards off the bed to face Steve and Nat rolled to xir feet with xir Biter outstretched. Steve didn't know what had sprung them into action - until he realised he was standing on his feet, the bindings snapped and sliding to the floor, the wooden chair he'd been sitting on now ripped into pieces.

Wh-- how had he--?

He stumbled backwards, leaning against the wall for support. How had he done that? He... he usually got winded carrying groceries back home with Sam.

Steve held up his palms; and he stared at these hands that he had once touched Sam with. '...What have you done to me?' he rasped.

'We haven't done anything to you. The suppressants you were taking have probably been flushed out of your system by now, that's all,' said Nat.

'I-- Suppressants?' Steve shook his head. Was xe talking about his medication? 'You don't know what you're talking about. Those pills help me stay in control. Wh-when I was a kid, I used to say terrible things. Crazy things.'

'Delusions of grandeur, yea,' said Nat, 'we read your file, too.'

'Your Highness,' Bonor said, abruptly.

Steve stared at her, confused. 'Your Highness,' Nat added grudgingly.

Steve slowly felt the bottom of his stomach fall out. 'You don't,' he said, 'you can't really--'

'Your Highness--,' Bonor started.

Steve started to laugh. He sounded hysterical even to his own ears. 'You don't really think,' he said, 'you can't really think that _I'm_ \--'

'What's your earliest memory?' Nat asked, stepping closer. The Biter xe held steady at xir side. Bonor held back, eyeing Steve warily.

'Memories can be fabricated,' Steve snapped. 'My birth parents were probably-- delusional, hoping to make money off of me somehow--'

'Ok, then,' said Nat, shrugging, 'what's your earliest fabricated memory?'

Steve swallowed.

_Everything will be ok, the boy said. Don't you worry about me, you just keep walking until you get to the end of the passage. That's when you open the door, and you walk until you see the road going down into town. And then you wait there, ok, and we'll come get you, me and Dad, and everything will be ok._

_You promise? he asked._

_Aw, c'mon, Ant, the boy said, smiling. Have I ever lied to you? Now go, before the rest of them get here. I'll be fine, promise. Go. Go!_

'I remember a boy,' Steve said slowly. 'Terran-descended... sun-skinned. He-- he was giving me directions somewhere.' He shook his head. 'It could mean anything.'

'His name was Jamit Bukarson,' said Nat. 'He was the son of the Head Guard, Gorsij Bukarson, and your personal friend. We know he survived the raid on your mother's palace, but we don't know where he is. We believe he was the last witness to see you alive.'

'To see me--' Steve felt faint, sick somehow. '--alive?' He wanted to laugh again, maybe, or to cry. 'You don't really believe this. You can't. Look at you, you've got a Biter aimed at my neck!' Nat curled xir attenae, and flicked the Biter to Standby mode. 'You don't really think I'm some long-lost Prince, do you?'

Nat and Bonor exchanged a look. 'It doesn't really matter what _we_ think, Your Highness,' Bonor said. 'Someone else seems to think that you're Grant Rogis the Third - and they were willing to kill you over it.'

'Were willing?' Steve repeated. Bonor winced. 'What do you mean, were willing?'

'She misspoke,' Nat said, glaring at Bonor.

No, she hadn't. That much was obvious. Steve started pacing back and forth, trying to make sense of the last few days. 'That distress signal you made me send out, from your ship... who picked it up? Did Sam hear it? Does Sam think I'm--?'

The pinpricks of-- not sadness, no, it was much deeper than that, Steve realised -- the pinpricks of _grief_ settled in at the edges of his bonding mark. 'I have to get to him,' he said.

'Go ahead,' said Nat. 'I hope you can protect him.'

Already halfway to the door, Steve turned around. Bonor stepped in front of Nat. 'If you hurt him--' said Steve. He barely recognised the voice that came out of his mouth.

'Oh, please, I have no reason to hurt your little boyfriend,' Nat said, pushing Bonor out of xir way.

'He's my fiancé,' Steve snarled.

'Fiancé, boyfriend, whatever,' Nat tossed xir head carelessly, 'you Terrans have too many terms for something very simple.' Bonor nudged xir in the stomach. Nat sighed. 'Listen. I know it may not seem like it, but it's good that people think you're dead. This will give us more time to track down Jamit--'

Steve didn't have time for this. He went for the door.

'If you go looking for Sam,' said Bonor, 'they'll find you both, and they'll kill you both. We won't be able to help you.'

The doorknob had become a mangled thing beneath his hand. '--If I help you,' Steve said, not turning around. ' _If_. And we find this Jamit... then what?'

'He'll attest to your identity, the King will welcome you back,' said Nat, 'we collect our reward, and you-- you do whatever it is you want to do.'

As if he would be allowed to go on living his normal life after he was crowned the long-lost Prince of the Southern Kingdom! 'And if we find Jamit, and he says I'm not the Prince?' said Steve. 'You will protect Sam.' He'd meant it to come out as a question - he found he couldn't be bothered.

'Yes,' said Bonor. 'We will.' She glared Nat down when xe opened xir mouth.

'No matter what happens to me,' Steve insisted, 'you protect Sam, ok?' A wave of grief nearly took him to his knees. 'He doesn't-- he doesn't deserve any of this.'

'Fine,' said Nat. 'We'll protect your wife or whatever.'

' _Fiancé_ ,' Steve snapped.

'Yea, yea, yea,' said Nat. 'Can you let go of the door now, please? We kind of want to get our deposit back when we move out. 'Preciate it. Now come over here and tell me if you recognise any of these faces.'

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place on an alternate Mars, one which has long been peopled by beings from all over. Naturally, a lot of details here should be taken as absolute fiction. But I've been fascinated by space for a while now, and I couldn't help incorporate some of the reading I've been inspired by.
> 
> I. I've placed West Soqua (the western-most Southern Quarters) in Vastitas Borealis, north of the equator. In my mind, this version of Mars has two autonomous countries: the Independent Terran Republic, to the north, where people from Earth first settled, and the Southern Kingdom of All Peoples, to the south, nominally co-governed by a figurehead monarchy and a vast parliament, which is peopled with representatives from each major Southern sector. It should be noted that the King for the past three generations... has been Terran-descended. This has been a cause of some friction.  
> II. A sol is the Martian equivalent of a day. To-sol, and to-sol, and to-sol, / Creeps in this petty pace from sol to sol!  
> III. Some interesting initial research has been done about making molecular oxygen (O2) from carbon dioxide! Inspired by the molecular oxygen which streams in wisps of gas from comets, Konstantinos Giapis, Yunxi Yao, Thomas Miller and Philip Shushkov, in connection with the California Institute of Technology, [recently demonstrated](https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/comet-inspires-chemistry-making-breathable-oxygen-mars) that when water molecules are shot like extremely tiny bullets onto surfaces which contain oxygen, like sand or rust (or even gold!), the water molecule can 'rip off' the oxygen to produce molecular oxygen. Let's pretend in this universe that this process is neither as prohibitively expensive nor as laborious to perform as I am assuming it currently is, and has instead become a routinely dangerous job for people from all backgrounds. In my mind, the marketing for the oxygen pulled from comets in the fictional Rocky Bay probably labels the 'fresh' oxygen as cleaner than oxygen pulled down on-planet.  
> IV. While there are no monsoons on Mars, [some studies indicate](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/raging-rivers-flowed-mars-billions-years-180971821/) that there may have been several 'wet periods' over the course of billions of years, and that there were massive rivers all over Mars as recently as a billion years ago, even when Mars' atmosphere had begun to dry up.  
> V. Not sure about the process of receiving a death certificate for a missing person in our world. There are steps that spouses or immediate family members can take to get a missing person officially declared dead, especially if there are witnesses to them being killed accidentally (i.e. being swept overboard, falling off the side of a mountain, etc) But if the police got involved in the wrap-up of these accidents, I wonder that a death certificate could not be issued anyway, as a matter of course?  
> VI. Tharsis is [ a large volcanic region](https://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/atlas/tharsis-montes.html) centred near Mars's equator, containing [some of the largest volcanic edifices in the solar system](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/12/101203-science-space-biggest-volcano-solar-system-mars/).


End file.
